Enhancing the art and science of community indicators and building a network of interested people.

Community Indicators for Your Community

Real, lasting community change is built around knowing where you are, where you want to be, and whether your efforts are making a difference. Indicators are a necessary ingredient for sustainable change. And the process of selecting community indicators -- who chooses, how they choose, what they choose -- is as important as the data you select.

The Jacksonville Community Council (JCCI) understands indicators and community change, with more than 25 years of producing the annual Quality of Life Progress Report for Jacksonville and the Northeast Florida region, and two decades of helping other communities develop their own sustainable indicators projects. JCCI consultants give you the information you need to measure progress, identify priorities for action, and assess results.

I'd like to talk with you personally about how we can help. E-mail me at ben@jcci.org, call (904) 396-3052, or visit CommunityWorks for more information. From San Antonio to Siberia, we're ready and willing to assist.

The report, CityStats, will be used as a “map for improving Baton Rouge,” BRAF spokesman Mukul Verma said in a news release.

The report will be issued annually, Verma said, and BRAF officials expect trends to emerge that will show the community what’s going right and what needs to be fixed.

The 50 indicators are all contained in nine categories: culture and recreation, economy, education, environment, government and civic participation, health, infrastructure, public safety and social well-being.

The second report is from Montgomery County, Ohio. Bob Stoughton says:

In Montgomery County, Ohio we recently released our tenth annual progress report since the publication of Turning the Curve in 1998. We are using Mark Friedman's RBA as our model and, in fact, we have an essay by him in this, our Tenth Anniversary Report.

Throughout this year's Report we have emphasized the importance of "community conversations" about the data -- these help people realize what the data are and they help illuminate the forces shaping the trends, all of which is essential if we are to move our indicators in the desired directions.

We currently are tracking 27 community indicators grouped under 6 community outcomes. The Report includes all of these data, goes "behind the numbers" in some special analyses, and summarizes the work of a host of Teams and Task Forces each attempting to turn a curve or two.

YorkCounts released its third indicators report Friday, and the results paint an uncertain picture for York County.

The community organization studies and suggests solutions for quality-of-life issues throughout the county. Its latest report groups 38 quality-of-life indicators into six categories: community, economy, education, health, safety and surroundings.

The available data for each of the indicators vary -- for instance, charitable giving is measured annually from 2001 through 2007, while teen motherhood statistics are offered for 2001, 2003 and 2005.

"Basically, the numbers do two things. They (compare) York County to the rest of the state, and they look at the trend," said YorkCounts communications director Dan Fink.

Thanks for the updates on these reports. And please keep them coming -- I'd love to share your latest report with the good people reading this blog.